[excessive]

Thank you for your reply, it does actually change how I see the prior art thing played out.

> Often, folks think that they've found prior art if they find one thing in one document and another thing elsewhere. Nope.

Still, I think there must be something profoundly broken if you find the exact math in an old book, and the new patent basically says, "do that math on a computer".

[analog31]

I'd be inclined to agree with you. In fact, as I understand it there are new rules that specifically address so called "with a computer" patents. You weren't supposed to be able to patent a math formula, so instead, people would patent a machine that carries out a math formula.